Their next move will be to start a process of constitutional development aimed at putting an elected government in place within 20 months.

A draft constitutional charter is in circulation, but the TNC have held back until they can bring in representatives from Tripoli and other areas still under Gaddafi and claim to represent the whole country. They have had advice from the UN, the US and the UK, but the document in circulation is their own.

The TNC appear at present to have very wide support in Libya. The answer to those who say that they are completely inexperienced is twofold: under Gaddafi all political and civil society was suppressed, so there is indeed a lack of experience.

Yet the TNC have shown themselves able to run Benghazi and other liberated areas in very difficult wartime circumstances, providing a decent level of security, food, electricity etc. Why should they not do the same throughout the country?

A lot of criticism of them has appeared in the international media, much of it ill informed. There are persistent suggestions that they are infiltrated by Islamic extremists if not actually by al Qaeda.

One report suggested that if Gaddafi fell now the result would be a catastrophic power vacuum. Others have suggested that the TNC is a broken reed, and that Libya should be run by – wait for it – the United Nations.

Since Libyans are free to speak out for the first time in their lives, and given the notorious readiness of exiles to pontificate about the countries from which they are exiled, it is not surprising that such ideas should pop up, but responsible commentators should weigh them rather than simply parroting them. My judgment is that these criticisms have little or no basis.

The tendency to knock the TNC is linked to the assumption that the West, or Nato, or Britain is responsible for what happens next. We are not.

As soon as the current fighting is over the UN mandate expires and we have no legal, political or moral basis for continued intervention except at the invitation of Libya. Just as well; experience suggests that if we were to continue to meddle we would make things worse.

We have one remaining duty, which is to go back to the UN and unfreeze the assets which now belong to the new Libya. Without those assets they cannot function, and if we don't move quickly, overriding the lawyers if necessary, we will be blamed and deserve to be blamed.

Economic policy is in any case one of the most difficult areas the new Libya will have to deal with.

Gaddafi's Libya depended on a bloated public sector earning unrealistically low salaries who got by because of subsidies from the state, paid of course from oil money. No one with any knowledge of economics would think that a sensible way to operate.

But the TNC are stuck with it for the moment, because tampering with the subsidies would be political suicide, and in principle the TNC claims no mandate to take far reaching policy decisions.

Unfreezing the assets will mean smart footwork to make sure that Russia and China are with us. It won't be easy, but it's got to be done.